Development of immunogenic compositions, and in particular of vaccines, is currently a challenging effort from conception to actual patient administration.
Some approaches rely on systems for delivering antigens and epitopes and therefore include antigenic epitope discovery (i.e. the molecular portion responsible for eliciting a protective immune response), epitope purification and epitope conjugation.
Other approaches to vaccine development have included and still include passivation of an infectious agent by chemical treatment, e.g. viral formalin fixation or by biological re-engineering to modify known/established virulent genes rendering a non-pathogenic infectious agent.
Additional approaches are based on recombinant proteins, possibly included in immunogenic particles, developed as potential replacements for traditional whole cell or killed pathogen vaccines.
In any of the above approaches, antigens and other immunological agents, such as adjuvants, are typically used to influence the immune system and modulate an immunological response to the antigen of choice [Ref. 13].